Marvel's Agents of SHIELD: "Wake Up"Review

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD has learned a lot in its four years on the air, and in its latest episode "Wake Up," it showed that it really knows how to use our expectations against us. The first two thirds of this episode felt like story beats this show has told us before, from SHIELD infiltrating an enemy's base to Daisy's defense of Inhuman kind to a traitor being in our midst. But that last third is what made "Wake Up" such an excellent episode, subverting what have become anticipated story beats all the way up through May's brutal twist of final scene.

I was convinced several weeks ago, when Radcliffe and Fitz got knocked out by Aida and then they woke up relatively unharmed, that Fitz was the second secret L.M.D. in SHIELD's midst. I remained convinced all the way until the big twist at the end of the episode: that Radcliffe has been an L.M.D. ever since Aida failed to acquire the Darkhold, and that he went running off to Nadeer to protect him.

There's still the question of who the "Superior" is -- a big reveal for a later episode -- but for now I'd like to focus on what the Radcliffe twist means for SHIELD. Despite hints in this week's promotion that May would finally break free from Radcliffe's clutches, she still remains his captive, and her L.M.D. double still remains the mole that SHIELD doesn't know it has.

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It seems inevitable that Fitz will figure out there's another L.M.D. sooner rather than later; after all, if Radcliffe wasn't real, it stands to reason he made multiple android doppelgangers. And if Nadeer keeps being three steps ahead of SHIELD, then someone definitely will connect two and two. More interesting is L.M.D. May's grappling with her sense of self throughout the episode, all the way through her confrontation with the (ironically) L.M.D. Radcliffe. As much as she wants to be true to her own identity, she's still just operating under his control.

I'd hoped we'd see similar depth with Aida, but as much fun as Mallory Jansen is having fun playing the many facets of this role, Aida isn't a character with an extreme amount of emotional complexity. Instead, that complexity is reserved for May.

The Radcliffe reveal at the end might have been the big twist of "Wake Up," but the real turning point of the episode was when we realized May's escape was really just Radcliffe's second attempt at a simulation to keep her comfortable. The episode's framing suggested this from the start by having the audience see what May was experiencing in her simulations, but the fact she wasn't actually escaping eluded me until she started running up those flights of stairs.

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While at first it seemed like May's escape was taking a backseat to the courtroom drama, instead they were part and parcel. It's actually Daisy, Coulson, Mace and even the rich emotional story going on with Mack and Yo-Yo that took the backseat to the Radcliffe of it all. Of all these stories, the Mack reveal about his daughter Hope was the most effective and heartbreaking, though thus far it's also the plot thread that seems the most removed from the pressing drama. That being said, it's also a plot thread that ties back to the Ghost Rider arc, so it could be a slow burn that will be resolved in the planned third story arc of Season 4.

Tying everything back to the end of the episode, the reveal of Radcliffe's third simulation for May -- a version of Bahrain where she saves the girl instead of kills her -- shows just how much Agents of SHIELD has matured. This second pod of episodes has done a great job layering back in seemingly forgotten plot points, and this one in particular is especially effective. It's easy to forget why May is as dark and cold as she can be; Agents of SHIELD already established that part of her character seasons ago and easily could move on. But returning to that traumatic event (and big reveal at the time) with a new twist was especially powerful, and shows that the show has a firm grasp on the larger narrative it's telling.

The Verdict

Agents of SHIELD smartly played into audience expectations in "Wake Up," taking the story in surprising directions and having even more surprising emotional payoffs. Our favorite SHIELD agents are in more trouble than they know, but at least they're in capable hands with Season 4's writing team this pod of episodes.